The headlines about Shigella have taken a sharp turn. For most of my career the bug showed up in the news the way I knew it best — a daycare outbreak, a sick restaurant worker, a batch of contaminated produce. Lately the headlines read more like something out of an STI clinic: “sexually transmitted superbug,” “drug-resistant Shigella spreading among […]
Reuters published an article this morning titled E. coli found in cattle feces in spinach probe. This headline should not surprise anyone who has actually visited the Salinas Valley. I spent all day today driving around Salinas and other Valley’s and Counties implicated in this outbreak. Anyone with a shred of common sense would have […]
I am touring the Salinas Valley for the next few days with several experts to get an idea about how this little valley could have been the source of so many outbreaks of E. coli.
The WSJ last week, the PSBJ this week – the business press seems more interested in this spinach outbreak than main-stream media. The below is from the Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle), written by Clay Holtzman: For 13 years, Seattle attorney William Marler has made a name for himself as the E. coli lawyer. Food […]
The below is an interview I gave last Thursday with KUOW reporter Austin Jenkins: If your kid gets E. coli poisoning – who are you going to call? These days people from across the country dial up Seattle attorney Bill Marler – sometimes before they talk to the health department. He’s made his name – […]
September was National Food Safety Month. Aren’t you glad it is over? Remember, despite the downward trends in food poisonings, 76 million people experience a food-borne disease in the United States each year. In fact, according to the Partnership for Food Safety Education and the United States Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease […]
FDA says spinach is safe! I have thought about that statement over and over again during the last twenty-four hours – “spinach is safe.” And, I guess lettuce is too? I know, I am being an alarmist, I am a trial lawyer trying to drum up more business, but am I? Let’s face facts – […]
Interesting video from CBS Evening News about the likely source of the E. coli that has sickened nearly 200 Americans – WATER: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2054114n
Marilynn Marchione, a medical writer for the Associated Press, reports that despite the recent E. coli spinach outbreak, food may be safer now than at any other time in the last decade, with illness occurring at record-low rates, according to new federal statistics: Consumers get part of the credit, for handling food more safely at […]
I knew this moment would be coming (SPINACH IS SAFE), but frankly, I thought it would be after the conclusion of an investigation, with conclusions and reforms. I find it perplexing, if not shocking, that Dr. Acheson, for who I have great respect, would simply say all is clear without knowing why this outbreak happened […]
More “smoking” bags of DOLE spinach. Great job to Health Departments across the country for taking the time to test this material for E. coli O157:H7. Hopefully, it will help link to where in the chain of distribution DOLE’s product became contaminated. However, make no mistake, wherever the product became contaminated, DOLE and Natural Selections […]
On September 25, I posted Survival means sometimes fixing the problem and saying you are sorry; On September 20, I called on the spinach and lettuce industry to step up and pay victims medical bills and wage losses as a first step to helping these families and in saving their industry. The Press Conference to […]
How a Tiny Law Firm Made Hay Out of Tainted Spinach By HEATHER WON TESORIERO and PETER LATTMAN September 27, 2006; Page B1 Before health officials warned the public about bad spinach, before grocers yanked fresh spinach off their shelves, before consumers cleaned out their refrigerators, the Seattle law firm Marler Clark had filed its […]
The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has reported on a spinach lawsuit filed in Rochester in U.S. District Court late Tuesday afternoon on behalf Patricia Ann McCoy of Pittsford, who got sick after eating a bag of Dole brand baby spinach she bought from Martin’s Super Food Store in Perinton on or about August 21. This […]
Last week we got a hint that the spinach industry feels that spinach is safe – well OK, not from three counties in California. But, how can the consuming public be sure of that? Also, when Salinas product does try to make it back on the market, how can the spinach industry in the Salinas […]
Two more cases of illness are being blamed on the outbreak of E. coli linked to fresh spinach. That raises the number of people sickened to 173 in 25 states. So far, 92 people have been hospitalized, including a Wisconsin woman who died. Two other deaths have been reported in suspected cases — a child […]